(no subject)

So, I saw a post on Tumblr about Sam Wilson, Superpower: being a PJ and I just UGH this is amazing for so many reasons:

Source from my dash: http://theserpentgirl.tumblr.com/post/125535042885/sonickitty-hansbekhart-stucky-official

Text of the post:

Can I just say something about Sam Wilson. Just give me like two minutes.

Hes a para rescue-man or PJ, most of you probably know that. Which means that one he was in the Air Force AND part of Special Operations, and two he is a badass motherfucker let me tell you.

PJs, are the only Department of Defense specialty specifically trained and equipped to conduct conventional or unconventional rescue operations. These Battlefield Airmen are the ideal force for personnel recovery and combat search and rescue. Sam would have regularly risked his own damn life to rescue other people, his literal function would have been personnel recovery specialist, withemergency medical capabilities in humanitarian and combat environments. PJs deploy in any available manner, to include air-land-sea tactics, into restricted environments to authenticate, extract, treat, stabilize and evacuate injured personnel. PJs participate in search and rescue, combat search and rescue, recovery support for NASA and conduct other operations as appropriate.

Pararescuemen are among the most highly trained emergency trauma specialists in the U.S. military. They must maintain an Emergency Medical Technician - Paramedic qualification throughout their careers. With this medical and rescue expertise, along with their deployment capabilities, PJs are able to perform life-saving missions in the world’s most remote areas.

As a PJ he would have been trained to go into literally every type of terrain and situation to rescue fellow airman and even soldiers from other branches, heres how:

8 weeks Basic Military Training when he first joined (this isnt even part of PJ training yet), that means intensive physical training, training in drill movements and formations, etc. Basic is 8 weeks of constant physical and mental challenge.

And then he would have going to his technical training to actually become a PJ.

He would have had to go through the The PAST - Physical Ability and Stamina Test, and have scored a 100 and here are the requirements for that;

These are minimums to becoming a PJ and Combat Control Tech but the numbers in the parenthesis are recommended scores from Spec Ops trainers:- 2 x 25 m sub surface swim no time limit (pretty much, be a HIGHLY proficient swimmer)
- 500 m swim 10:07 or less (sub 9 min)
- 30 min rest
- 1.5 mile run 9:47 or less (sub 9 min)
- 10 min rest
- 10 pull ups min (20 )
- 2 min rest
- 58 sit ups min (100 )
- 2 min rest
- 54 push ups min (100)

Sam would to have had a high school diploma or GED, and 15 college course credits in relevant subjects to even QUALIFY for Indoctrination courses. Fuck yeah, he is educated. Can we please not overlook that anymore???

This 10-week indoctrination course would train Sam through extensive physical conditioning. Training accomplished at this course includesphysiological training, obstacle course, rucksack marches, dive physics, dive tables, metric manipulations, medical terminology, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), weapons qualifications, PJ history and leadership reaction course.

After the Candidate Course there are two different professions with two different pipelines (but similar) to follow depending on if you want to be a PJ or CCT. Here is the PJ pipeline of training;

Joined for both PJ and CCT;

- U.S. Army Airborne School, Fort Benning, Ga. - 3 weeks: Here he’d learn the basic parachuting skills required to infiltrate an objective area by static line airdrop.

- U.S.A.F. Combat Diver Course, Panama City, Fla. - 4 weeks: Heres where Sam would become a combat diver, learn to use SCUBA and closed-circuit diving equipment to covertly infiltrate denied areas, conduct sub-surface searches and basic recovery operations. The six-week course provides training to depths of 130 feet, stressing development of maximum underwater mobility under various operating conditions.

- U.S. Navy Underwater Egress Training, Pensacola Naval Air Station, Fla. - 1 day:He’d how to safely escape from an aircraft that has ditched in the water. The one-day instruction includes principles, procedures and techniques necessary to get out of a sinking aircraft.
- U.S. Air Force Basic Survival School, Fairchild AFB, Wash.- 2.5 weeks: Sam would go through a two-and-a-half-week course that teaches basic survival techniques for remote areas. Instruction includes principles, procedures, equipment and techniques, which enable individuals to survive, regardless of climatic conditions or unfriendly environments and return home.
- U.S. Army Military Free Fall Parachutist School, Fort Bragg, N.C.- 5 weeks:Remember that parachute from TWS??? Yeah, heres where he learned that (probably??). The course instructs trainees in free fall parachuting procedures. The five-week course provides wind tunnel training, in-air instruction focusing on student stability, aerial maneuvers, air sense and parachute opening procedures.

PJ Pipeline Different Schools

-Paramedic Course, Kirtland AFB, N.M. - 22 weeks: This 22-week course teaches how to manage trauma patients prior to evacuation and provide emergency medical treatment. Upon graduation, an EMT-Paramedic certification is awarded through the National Registry. Sams a certified EMT responder as well.
- Pararescue Recovery Specialist Course, Kirtland AFB, N.M.- 20 weeks: Qualifies airmen as pararescue recovery specialists for assignment to any pararescue unit worldwide. The 24-week training includes field medical care and extrication basics, field tactics, mountaineering, combat tactics, advanced parachuting and helicopter insertion/extraction.

And then by fucking god he would have graduated his training and donned the maroon beret, he’d be one of the most highly trained combat medics in the world, he’d able to handle the most stressful situations with fucking ease. He would have done ALL this after probably being told he couldn’t, that he was just a kid from a rough neighborhood, and he would have rubbed it in everyone who told him those thing’s faces.

He WANTED to go through all that shit you just read because Sam badass Wilson CARES about people. He lost his best friend SAVING people. He was picked as a test pilot for the EXO-7 Falcon along with Riley.

THEN, theres literally what happens in the movie. Sam holds his own just like everyone else does, if not better because hes only human. Hes competent, smart, and for fucks sake hes compassionate and REAL.

So for the serious love of fucking all that is holy can we please STOP PRETENDING HE DOESN’T EXIST??? Stop erasing POC characters???Sam is a goddamn real-life hero and this fandom and myself included needs to stop pinning him as the plucky sidekick or ‘all hes good for is emotional support’because he can take care of his damn self.

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That was the post from Tumblr.

But this is my extension:


SO. John Sheppard as a PJ -- More so, in Beserker'verse.

A John who put so much work into being able to SAVE people works with him being a Sentinel, and the canon/fanon archetypes of Sentinels as people who are guardians, well, Sentinels, who live to protect their people/tribe.

John, in any canon, wants to save his people, wants to protect them, keep them safe.

Berserker'verse John, more so than usual. As a Sentinel, he feels that instinctual imperative to keep people safe.

So, backing up: I'm trying to finish!finish writing a cohesive first draft of Berserker on Thin Ice, and I was struggling, so I sent it to my 'Echo' (I have a Beta and an Echo. *giggles hysterically*) So, she was reading over it, and I realised I need setup before Antarctica, the mechanics of the world need to be established before we get into the whirlwind of his being dragged into the stargate program, hauled to Atlantis, and the world shattering revelations that Berserkers tethering an Empath is not hobbling them, because a Sentinel and a Guide, when properly bonded, make each other so much stronger.

John comes online as a Sentinel/Berserker in Berserker'verse, in the middle of a combat rescue mission gone FUBAR. He was one of only two PJ's left alive in their rescue operation, and their rescued - person was struggling, their heartbeat near failing, and John Awoke as a Berserker, feral and protective. He ... I'm trying to figure out if the mission that Holland died on was the mission John Awoke or not.

Ok, so: If it is, then John comes to Antarctica right off of Awakening as a Berserker, and the brutality of witnessing the deaths of his team and whomever they were supposed to be rescuing, and in the wake of those failures, he is sent to a barren wasteland, where he fights to keep his senses in check.

Or, John was deployed as a Berserker to fight with a unit, and the unit was captured, and John was exiled to Antarctica because of his failure to act as the protector of a unit.

I think I like the first one better, because it better establishes how a Berserker can reach a rank of Major? Like, most Berserkers get deployed with Infantry units? They are rankless, used as cannon fodder in direct engagements, and as scouts and protectors for Special Ops missions? Attached to Seal and Ranger and other Spec. Forces units?

So at the beginning, John isn't allowed to wear rank insignia, even though he still technically is holding the rank of Major, because berserkers don't get rank?

The line I wrote, about "the Dogs of war don't get to pick their kennels" has stuck with me, because what if that is the way they are treated, the way they are kept? Because we as a western culture have found ways to dehumanize people without even having the excuse of "They don't have souls, tho--" and it would be painfully easy for us to hate people who LITERALLY don't show souls.

So John is still reeling from being stripped of his rights, stripped of his humanity, he's still adjusting to the fact that the Air Force countersigned his divorce papers when Nancy submitted them. The John who was disinherited, written out of his father's will estate, and family, because he was a Berserker. The John who eventually attends his fathers funeral, and David was never told that John was a Berserker, never told that that was why John was suddenly GONE.

That John? Who's had no time to adjust from being trusted, capiable, confidant, a PJ who saved lives, no time to adjust to being an unhuman Berserker.

I'm not sure, and I need to know this to better characterize him, and to better set the stage, and Echo dosen't know the characters, has no idea how the world mechanics work, and as useful as that is for story composition especially for uninitiated readers, I really need to storyboard concepts with you, because your understanding is so integral to asking different kinds of questions.

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I copied and pasted the first email in the chain directly to this post because somebody *ahem Ivorygates ahem* said I should cross post this to my Journal. So I did, and I don't know what to do from here ... so POSTING!